Friday, May 29, 2015

After kicking off our Costa Rica
adventure in the capital, San Jose, the time spent in Tortuguero seemed to mark
the real start of our trip – the Tortuga Lodge was just the sort of rustic yet
very, very comfortable accommodation we’d hoped for.And there was much planned – a river trip with
a guide, a hike around the whole property to learn more about the flora and
fauna of the very wild lands adjacent to the lodge, volunteering in a local village
school, and visit to the neighboring village.And then there was the iguana.

Let’s get him out of the way
first.You know how you get birds and
other animals who are used to guests eating outside, and seem to wait around
for the odd tidbit to fall from the table.This is the foodie who came to lunch and dinner.I kept my distance. I am not a lover of
reptiles, though I hold nothing against people who try to tell me it’s just
like having a dog or cat in the house. I once had a friend who snuggled up with
Hiss every night – yes, her boa constrictor. No, that’s not for me. I like
fluffy and warm, not clammy with pointy bits that look dangerous.

I'm pretty sure that's him again, waiting for dinner to roll around.

We saw quite a few iguanas, and
caimans, and lizards.We saw poison dart
frogs and all manner of spiders. There were also snakes to be avoided, with
names such as the eyelash viper, or the pit viper.A rattle snake seems
positively cozy by comparison.Oh, and
one of my favorite insects – funnily enough – was the leaf cutter ant.Talk about industrious! I should have a photo
of a phalanx of them on my wall, just to remind me what it is to really work at something every
time I have a touch of the lazies (which, admittedly, isn’t that often).

These tiny little ants march out
from their nest every day, back and forth, back and forth, to bring back bits
of leaf, which form a vital nutritional basis for the forms of life (a fungus
in particular, I think …) that sustain them in the nest.But apart from all that, an ant carrying a
large chunk of leaf is a bit like me carrying around a big slab of concrete on
my back, which we know is not going to happen in this lifetime. I have enough
trouble with a backpack! Under each bit of leaf in that photograph is a worn
out ant, who will deliver her cargo and then go straight back out to the
leaf-face again.

I loved the toucans, even though
they can be pretty aggressive birds, taking eggs from the nests of other birds,
and generally ruling the roost.One
evening we watched as a group of spider monkeys chased off toucans feeding high
in one of the trees – moving in on what was obviously something really tasty. I was a bit disappointed in toucan behavior,
probably because I always thought they would be neighborly birds, given their
links to the Guinness advertisements of old.I imagined them toddling off to the Toucan Arms and having a pint with
the locals.And mystery writers – did
you know that as a copywriter, Dorothy L. Sayers was on the advertising team
that came up with the toucan idea for Guinness?

And then there was the sloth, who
as far as I know has never been used to advertise anything, though parents of
teens may have likened their offspring to the slow, rather lazy animal at
times.They are strange creatures, but
with a life that’s quite fascinating.Do
you know about the sloth? They live in the same tree for weeks on end, only
coming down from the tree once a week to do their business, then scurrying back
up again (they are ungainly on the ground).There’s a veritable city of life on the sloth – various insects call the
sloth home, including one particular species of moth that uses the sloth and his waste
matter as a crucial part of their reproductive process.And to think, when the sloth is hanging in the
tree upside down, munching on leaves, he looks so lazy (hence the name), but
so much is going on in this animal, it’s an ecosystem in itself.Sort of like a teen’s bedroom.

When we made arrangements for the
trip, Gustavo (our travel planner) drew our attention to the Words Adventure
Program organized by the Tortuga Lodge. Guests can volunteer to go to a local village
school to be part of a lesson, giving the children an opportunity to practice
their English skills. The founders of Costa Rica Expeditions wanted to make a real contribution to the
children of the area – and learning English is considered crucial given Costa
Rica’s dependence upon tourism (and the worlds’ fastest-growing languages are
English and Spanish). We
were taken along to the school by one of the guides – Priscilla – who taught several
lessons at the school each week, and who was leading the lesson for the small
class of more advanced learners.By most
“western” standards, the school left much to be desired.Small prefabricated buildings, no electronic
devices, no teaching aids other than a whiteboard and markers, all pretty
low-tech.The buildings had been
brightly painted though, and outside a mixed group of boys and girls, all ages,
played football (soccer, that is) on a makeshift pitch surrounded by others
cheering and calling out. Dogs seemed to run around everywhere, and one even
tried to join the class.But here’s the
key thing – those children might have had few of the advantages of the children
in schools local to my home in northern California, but their English was
really, really good, and they tried very hard to get things right (even though
I am sure they would have much preferred to be kicking that ball around with
the other kids).We had a good time, and
something strange happened to me – I remembered how much I enjoyed
teaching!OK, so before you think I
don’t know what I am talking about – I originally trained to be a teacher, and
during my three-year course I taught at some really challenging schools for several
months at a time.I might never have
taken up a paid teaching position (by the time I graduated, there was a
complete surplus of teachers in the UK), but I was able to draw upon something
that lingered from my original training, because when I arrived back our room,
I was Googling, “Volunteer teaching opportunities in Costa Rica.”In any case, here we are with our class.They were wonderful kids and it was one of
the highlights of the trip for me.

After a couple of days at the
Tortuga Lodge, it was time to move on to the Pacuare Lodge, one of the
best-rated eco-lodges in the world.There would be limited Wi-Fi (and only electricity in the office and kitchen, as they depend
upon hydro power), and there would be no power in the cabins, so illumination at night would be provided by candles.This is a photo of
us on our way from Tortuguero to the Pacuare River, where we would board rafts to take us to
the Lodge.And this would be the last
time Corinne saw her Tilley hat. More on that later.

Here we are on the river, after
Corinne lost her Tilley hat, probably when she left it on the rocks as we
prepared to get on the raft, and she discovered that we had to don helmets.
Well of course we did – you could get knocked out on the rocks!

This is Alberro, our river guide,
who brought out juicy fresh pineapple when we stopped for a break and to look
at some waterfalls.

Finally we were at the Pacuare
Lodge. Heaven on earth. The sounds of the jungle reverberated around us, and I
knew this was where I would finally start to really relax.That’s when Corinne discovered two disasters:The Tilley hat was no longer
in her possession.

If
there was no electrical power in the rooms, then there was no way she could
operate her HAIRDRYER!

I
have traveled in quite a few countries with Corinne, and in our early twenties
we shared three different flats and a cottage together over a period of about
four years, and let me tell you, mornings with Corinne are punctuated by the
sound of a hairdryer. Corinne does not leave the house without styling her hair
and fiddling with the hairdryer.I’m
always telling her it doesn’t look any different for all the work, but still
she goes on.Once it used to drive me
nuts (we were always late getting to parties, for a start), but now I just find
it amusing.I think her husband just
shuts it out, or maybe revs up the car threatening to leave without her.

However,
the search for the hat had only just begun!

Next week:More at Pacuare, a bumpy ride out, Arriving
at Nayara and the Arenal volcano, the magical gardens of Nectandra, how to make
a good cup of Joe - and what it means to grow in a place.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

It
took fifteen years and nine completed novels. I had a long learning curve. I
had never taken a writing course, hadn’t read a book on the subject and, in the
interests of completely embarrassing myself will confess that I, a cum laude graduate of a private college,
wrote my entire first novel misspelling the word “wasn’t.” I still don’t
understand why that word doesn’t have an e in it. How can you go straight from
the s to the n without a vowel? It’s anarchical.

At any rate, through years of
grueling trial and error I eventually produced something semi-readable. At the
same time a little TV show called CSI
premiered and since I and my character are both forensic scientists, that was
enough to get an agent to notice me. I had been a secretary for ten years so if
there was one thing I could handle, it was mass mailings. I would mail ten
agents at a time, screw ‘no simultaneous submissions,’ and everyone got a query
letter no matter what they asked for in Writer’s Digest. One momentous day I
got a phone call from my first, excellent agent who sadly passed away a few
years ago. I had no acquaintance or ‘in’ with her, mine was simply another
query letter that showed up on her desk.

However, she had some suggested
changes to my book Trace Evidence…eight
months of suggested changes. Some I liked, some I didn’t. (After the editor got
it, she sent me nine pages, single-spaced, of more suggested changes. The olden
days.)

My agent decided to auction the
book. (This is not a reflection on my writing ability but on the extent of the CSI craze sweeping the nation.)
Coincidentally I would be on my way to Cleveland to visit my mother (which I
did regularly) on that day. When I changed planes in Charlotte and turned on my
cell phone, I received a message from my agent that there had been such a bad
snowstorm in New York that she had postponed the auction until Monday, except
Monday would be Martin Luther King Jr. Day and many people would be home what
with kids being out of school and all that she decided Tuesday would be a
better idea.

On
Monday she called me just to ask ‘how I was doing.’ I think she had grown
accustomed to much more high-strung clients.

Tuesday came. My sister drove up
from mid-Ohio to visit with me and we were about to take my 85 year old mother
to pick up my 80 year old aunt to visit other relatives in two separate nursing
homes, and were delayed because my agent called and said the auction was
already over. She had sold it to Hyperion. These were the days when the economy
was riding its false bubble and everyone was spending money as fast as they
could make it, and she named me an astronomical sum. She must have been
disappointed in my reaction—I simply asked her to repeat it, as I thought I
must not have heard correctly. Even then, no screaming, shouting, jumping up
and down. We’re not super-demonstrative in my family. But we were all very,
very happy.

Then, of course, we piled into the
car and went to pick up my aunt--the day’s schedule had to be kept. While
driving I called another sister, two brothers, and my husband. The focus, of
course, was on keeping my husband from going on an instant spending spree. It
would have been gone in two weeks if I didn’t keep all my business paperwork at
my day job.

Alas, in ten years things have
changed. Hyperion got out of the fiction line entirely and I don’t know any
authors who receive advances they’d actually get excited about. I often think
of quitting. Then I don’t.

Friday, May 22, 2015

from JacquelineIf you hadn’t guessed already, this has been a bit of a challenging year for me thus far.A collarbone injury that refuses to heal, my prolonged bout of severe bronchitis, and having to cancel half my book tour.There’s more, though I won’t bore you with the details.But there was a light on the horizon – an adventure planned last November with my friend Corinne, when I thought I would have a healed collar bone in double-quick time, no chest infections or any other illness, no problems with my mother (who needs high risk hip replacement surgery), and nothing to get in the way of my book tour. You remember the saying about how to make God laugh by telling him your plans?I’ll remember that next time I look ahead at the year and start slotting in this and that with a sense of abandon, playing fast and loose with Fate.In March, when I complained to my doctor that I had to get rid of the bronchitis quickly, as I had a book tour to finish, plus a trip to England to see my mother ... and a trip to Costa Rica, she looked at me in disbelief and said, “You’re not going anywhere until I say you can!”

The seeds for our expedition were
sown many, many years ago, when Corinne and I were in our early twenties.
Confirmed travel buddies, we always said we would do a big trip when we hit the
big 6-0, which was then the official retirement age for women in the UK – fat
chance of being able to retire at 60 now!Funny how those years whipped by – it was last October when Corinne emailed
to say, “When are we going, and where are we going?”And we set to planning, with one problem to
overcome – everywhere we wanted to go demanded either a very long journey for
me, or a very long journey for Corinne, who lives in Harrogate, England.New Zealand, South Africa, India … every exotic country on the planet came up for consideration and was deemed too much for one of us. Then Corinne
said, “How about Costa Rica?”We checked
flight times, and – on paper – it seemed that she would only have a couple of
hours more travel time than me.At last,
were off to the races!

Let’s start with a confession – I
am addicted to what I might call “travel porn.”I subscribe to about four travel magazines, and I am a sucker for a
travel memoir. I buy books about places I want to go, and I keep a file of
articles on places that interest me.I
pulled out my clutch of papers on Costa Rica, and identified a travel company I
thought would fit the bill, Costa Rica
Expeditions.Corinne looked them up
on Tripadvisor.com and agreed – they were first class.All I will say at this point is that Gustavo,
our travel planner at Costa Rica
Expeditions, has the patience of a saint – graciously dealing with two
women, one in the north of England, and one in California, who would email him every
couple of days asking if this change could be made, or that outing added to the
mix. Gustavo put together a really
exciting trip for us, and soon the day of departure whipped around.My doctor said, “OK, you can go – but don’t
get sick.”

If you haven’t gathered this
before, in previous Travels With Corinne posts,
it doesn’t take much to kick start fits of giggles when we get together.My 'plane landed a half hour before
Corinne’s, so I was waiting for her when she came through the arrivals hall,
and her first question was, “I think I need some colons!”I started to laugh.“How about some commas as a side order?” I
replied – and that was it, we were off!The
stage for our adventure had been set – this was going to be a lot of fun!(The currency in Costa Rica should be
pronounced “col-on-es” and should not sound like either a part of human
plumbing system, or punctuation).

We used American $$$ anyway.

I know many readers will have
already visited Costa Rica, so I won’t bore you with the sort of things you can
read in any travel magazine, but I want to write about those elements that
really struck me during our visit, and some of our highlights.

Our first day in the country was
spent in San Jose, the capital, where we made our way from our lovely old hotel,
the Hotel Grano de Oro, into the center
of the city.

We set off for a walk on our first
morning, and within one block came across what looked like a street party – I
guess it was, and it seemed like a regular Sunday event. The street was sealed
off from traffic for several blocks to allow families to come together and enjoy
a day out.One group of kids was playing
street hockey using those Styrofoam noodles and a ball, and they were having a
blast!Another group were skateboarding
through a series of obstacles put up to test their expertise, and with everyone
waiting his or her turn to show off their skills.And on the next block, the BMXers were
getting pretty serious about being the best – it was like being at a rodeo for
kids on bikes.Mothers, fathers,
families stood and watched, chatted and shared in the fun – and not one of
those youngsters was toting a cellphone or some other distracting piece of
electronic equipment (and believe me, it’s all readily available in CR).

And here’s something else I noticed
as we walked along – Corinne observed the same thing – that babies under the
age of about a year or so were not put in strollers, or strapped to a parent so
that they were facing outwards to look at every stranger walking towards them,
rather they were carried in their mother’s arms, swaddled in a shawl and held
close to the heart.There was something
comforting about that, as if the child were deeply cherished, and even amid the
throng, would feel the mother’s (or grandmother’s) arms around him/her. I liked
that - it was as if the weight of the child were nothing loving arms could not
bear.

This is one of several statues of what I guess you could call "earth mother" women around the city. I wish I knew what inspired them - I would love to think it was the close, affectionate mothering of the women with their children.

The next morning began with the
part of the tour I was secretly dreading; a flight on a small aircraft from San
Jose to Tortuguero on CR’s Caribbean coast.

You know how I feel about flying – not my favorite thing, which is
pretty rich coming from someone who was a flight attendant in earlier
years.That’s when Corinne and I met,
becoming flatmates, good friends, and travel companions.But my love of travel overrides my fears –
fortunately.Yet Corinne could not wait
to get into the aircraft, and bagged the front seat next to the pilot
immediately. That would be the pilot who appeared as if he had been playing
truant from high school to fly us to Tortuguero.I looked suspiciously at the 5-seater Cessna
(including the intrepid aviator), noting the two seats behind the pilot and
Corinne, then the small seat tucked into the rear, right in front of the tail.I gauged the weight of the two other
passengers waiting to board, and I thought – with good reason, I might add –
“Oh, here it comes.”Let me first tell
you something about me and 'planes – I like to sit as close to the front as
possible.Even my publisher’s publicist
knows that I will put up with pretty much everything that might be thrown at me
on a book tour in terms of travel, but seat me anywhere beyond about one third
of the way down the 'plane, and I might just take myself onto another
flight.And I prefer a window seat, not
so I can look out, but so I can close my eyes and burrow down.I looked at the pilot and said, “I don’t like
sitting at the back.”He regarded me
with pleading eyes.He said nothing, as
if he knew I’d understood what was needed.I held up my hands in resignation.“I know,” I said.“You want me in
that little seat so the load and trim of the aircraft is within legal limits
don’t you?”“Yes, I really do,” he said.
“Or we will never get off the ground.”

That's Corinne, having leapt into the seat next to the pilot.

As we taxied down the runway I was wondering
how I would get out of that thing if we needed to a) abort take-off,b) crash land on terra firma, or c) crash in the sea.I figured my plan would
be to whack out the window, climb over passenger #3 having shoved him into
passenger #4, and either swim or run.Corinne could get herself out for nabbing that front seat before
me!I must admit, I also took some nice
photos – I realized that if I didn’t look out the window, I would have to look
at the joins in the metal inside the Cessna, and they sort of moved a bit.

Thankfully, we soon landed in
Tortuguero to be greeted by guides from the Tortuga Lodge, which was situated across the
river. They walked towards us with umbrellas (yes, it was raining, a happy
sight for someone from drought-stricken California, not so much for a lass from
the north of England), then helped us board a small boat to take us to the
Lodge, where we were met by a waiter bearing a tray glasses filled with the
most delicious blend of fresh fruit juices I have ever tasted.Ah, now we were in the Costa Rica we had come
to see.Now the adventure would truly
begin.Now we would need the insect
repellent.

Next week:On toucans, teaching English in the village
school, a walking tree, lunch with the iguana and white-water rafting to the
Pacuare Lodge.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Does that mean a novelist from the South? Someone who grew up there? Or can it include those

who have moved to the
South and embraced it as their own?

And heck, what’s the South?
Got to answer that before you can say who is really from there.

Does “the South” include Florida, which was too hot before
the advent of air-conditioning for anyone to wear hoop-skirted dresses? And which has a huge population of people who
definitely do not have Southern drawls.

What about Texas?
True, as with South Carolina and other states, Texans at one point tried
to be their own separate country. And
while they like their conservative politics and love their guns, they’re also proud of their cowboys and barbeque
beef brisket and understandably see little need to “be Southern.” They are, after all, Texans.

What about the people who’ve moved south and claim it as
their soul home, the place they were meant to be before some cosmic oversight
misdirected the place of their birth?

[Note: This cannot include the people who move here and
proceed to tell us (1) how they did it back home, (2) how much better that was,
and (3) why we should change.
Categorically, they don’t belong and should go home immediately. As Southern comedian Lewis Grizzard famously
said, “Delta is ready when you are.” Sadly,
will they recognize themselves in this description? Unlikely.]

Does being Southern mean loving guns, eating squirrel,
cringing at fake Southern accents in Hollywood movies and TV shows, competing
in tobacco-spitting-for-distance contests, and going barefoot (either by choice
or by poverty)? I can give you names for
each of those examples—as well as names of true Southerners who are the exact
opposite.

Does being Southern mean we keep our crazy people on the
front porch instead of in the attic?
[Might be onto something here … had family and neighbors that
occasionally checked into the mental hospital for a little rest, back in the
day.]

For me personally, my Southern bona fides are solid: my family has lived in South Carolina for 300
years. (As I’m fond of saying, we don’t
go far.) My current home in Charlotte,
North Carolina (which sits on the border with South Carolina) is as far north
as anyone will let me go. People say I
have an accent, though I don’t know what they’re talking about. So I’m sure all that has affected what I
choose to write. But is that what
defines “Southern writer”?

Does being a Southern writer mean knowing Pat Conroy? [He and I were in Highlands a few summers
ago, working on our novels. Of course,
he didn’t know I was there. But we were
breathing the same air.]

Is it the strength of religion? The strength of family? Is it the food (mostly fried)? Is it the proximity to nature (or the killing
thereof, everything from hunting and fishing to logging to strip mining to that
more recent phenomenon: mowing down acres to plant shopping centers)? Is it a history of both extreme wealth and
extreme poverty?

Plenty of other regions of the country can boast these
attributes. So that can’t be it …

Or is it our penchant for storytelling? Maybe.
We tell and hear stories at home, at church, in the bleachers at the
summer softball games, at the local meat-and-three restaurant, while fishing,
even at WalMart. I’ve had strangers walk
up to me at the checkout line and start telling me their life stories or
showing me their scar tissue. All the
things we love—family, food, church, home, WalMart—seem to involve
stories. And we cherish them, just as we
cherish our crazy people.

What does it mean to be a Southern writer? For me, it means that one day, I may be the
crazy cat lady of my neighborhood, wandering the streets at dusk, talking to
myself. And people will let me. I hope I’m smiling (unlike a couple of other
angry-talking, crazy street-wandering women I’ve known). And I’ve got to get a cat first. At least one.

But I also get to listen carefully for the stories that fill
the air around me. Can’t say if that’s
what makes a Southern writer—though it does seem to be fairly potent air, given
our literary history. I’ll settle for
that as a definition—a Southern writer loves where she is, listens carefully,
and tries to pass the stories along.

If you want to breathe some Southern literary air, come to
the South Carolina Book Festival [http://scbookfestival.org] May 15 – 17,
Columbia, SC. It’s free. It’s fun.
Jim Born and I will be there, along with loads of other writers—some
you’ve heard of, some you’ll be discovering for the first time.

Then you can decide for yourself what it means to be a Southern
writer.

Bio: Cathy’s first mystery, SOUTHERN FRIED, won St. Martin’s
Press Malice Domestic Award for Best Traditional Mystery. In her other lives, Cathy has been a lawyer
and business professor at Queens University of Charlotte, former president of
Sisters in Crime, on the MWA national board, and president of the regional
Forensic Medicine Program. She now
consults with businesses and artists on developing their own creative process.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

James O. Born

Today I'm on my way to Columbia, South Carolina for the South Carolina Book Festival. My biggest assignment is on Friday afternoon when I teach a two hour class on "How to Write a Novel". I've taught the class before in Columbia and else where. My blogs over the past 18 months have helped me put my thoughts into a better focus.

Nex week we will continue our look at different genres as we explore southern fiction with Cathy Pickens. I met Cathy at this very book festival many years ago. She made the error of laughing at my stupid jokes and now I follow her around like a dog. It doesn't hurt that her husband, Bob, is an expert on college football.

Just thought I'd catch everyone up and give a little preview of next week.

I have been very impressed with our guest bloggers so far.

What are some of the genres you'd like to see discussed?

Leave a comment or email mail me.

Here's the SCBF listing. This way it looks like the blog is a little longer.

The class will deal with general concepts of writing fiction. From idea to publication, this class looks at the elements each writer should consider as he or she prepares for the arduous journey of self discovery and trials of doubt and rejection as a story develops. The class will offer a simple guide to structuring a novel, developing characters and creating suspense. Thriller writer James O. Born shares his first hand experience and lessons he learned the hard way. Learn tips such as the easiest way to plot out a story and ways of making a word processor work for you while starting the Great American Novel.

Faculty:

James O. Born is a graduate of Florida State University and received a Master’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in Psychology.

Born started his career in police work as a US Drug Agent (DEA) and was part of the late 1990’s Miami drug war. He then moved on to become a Special Agent with the elite Florida Department of Law Enforcement, working undercover and spending eleven years on the agency’s Special Operation’s Team (also called SWAT).

Born has taken his career in law enforcement and love of writing and blended it into a new life as a novelist. After advising numerous writers and TV shows on realism, Born spent years working on a novel of his own. In 2004, Putnam published his first novel, Walking Money. Of all the attention garnered by the novel, Born is most proud that one of his literary heroes, W.E.B. Griffin, picked Walking Money as one of his all-time favorite beach books.

The darkly comic series continued with Escape Clause, which won the gold medal in the inaugural Florida Book Award in 2007. In 2009, he won the Barry Award for short fiction at the International Mystery Writer’s Conference in Indianapolis.

In 2014, Born coauthored the popular Border War with TV commentator Lou Dobbs. His current series is a realistic view of police k-9s. The first novel in the series Scent of Murder, due for release in April of 2015, follows the pursuit of a serial kidnapper and showcases police service dogs.

Each novel strives to bring realism and entertainment together for fans of crime fiction.

Born has delivered talks to a number professional writing organizations as well as taught writing at conferences across the country. He has written articles for magazines and newspapers. In 2009, he was chosen as one of Florida’s 21 most intriguing people by Florida Monthly Magazine.

Born has also received a proclamation from the Senate of South Carolina for his efforts to advance literacy.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

Bob is a lawyer and a bestselling author. His first in the Tracy Crosswhite series was released November 1, 2014 by Thomas and Mercer and became a #1 bestselling title on Amazon, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. .-Jim Born

I recently attended Left Coast Crime in Portland and was
asked, “What makes a good legal thriller?”

I
responded, “Take out the word ‘legal’. What makes a good thriller? In fact,
take out the word thriller. What makes a good book?”

The answer, Tension.

Stephen King advocates tension on
every page, which, of course, is easier said than done. It’s sort of like the
writer’s proverb, “Show, don’t tell.”
Really? Are you really going to write a 400 page novel without doing any
telling? Not possible, in my humble
opinion. If you try, you’ll have 400 pages of metaphors and similes, most not
very good.

Tension is a tricky thing. Too
often I read manuscripts in which the writer has interpreted tension to mean,
action. So the writer ends up with a manuscript that is filled with action on
every page. This can be as monotonous as the book that has no action at all. In
other words, action without tension is boring. It’s also exhausting for the
reader. They don’t have time to catch their breath. More importantly, they
don’t have time to care about the character’s well-being. The reader expects
the protagonist to survive. Where do you go after your protagonist has climbed
along the outside of a moving plane, parachuted 5,000 feet using a blanket, and
survived shark infested waters?

So here’s my tip for creating
tension. It doesn’t start with the plot. It starts with the character. First,
if the writer doesn’t take the time to create a living, breathing character on
the page that the reader cares about, then all the action scenes in the world
won’t matter because the reader isn’t invested in the character’s life. They
don’t care.

Think of these two scenarios. A friend calls you up to tell you that a
college friend you haven’t seen in thirty years passed away. You may feel some
regret, some sorrow, some nostalgia, but probably not much pain. Now a friend calls you up and tells you that
your college roommate and best friend passed away. That pain is real, deep and
pervasive. Why? Because you have invested in that friend’s life. You know his
or her spouse and kids. You have the same friends. You vacation together and
know all of his or her quirks and wonderful qualities. You cared about that
person. You have to make the reader care about your character in some way so
that the reader cares whether your character survives the ordeal you will put
them through. When you do that, then the action scenes create tension because
the reader anxiously wants the protagonist to be okay and come out the side
perhaps injured, but still alive.

Try something less morbid. You’re
watching March Madness. Two basketball teams from schools you are not
affiliated with are playing. How much do you care who wins or loses? Now you’re watching your alma mater in what
is the biggest game in school history. You live and breathe Stanford Cardinal
sports. Are you watching the game? Is your leg shaking? Are you biting your
nails? Yelling at the referees? Why? Because you’re invested. You want the
reader to be just as invested in your protagonist.

Second, make the character care
about their own well-being. I call this giving the character self-regard. This
is often overlooked by writers. Think about the books where the action hero
really doesn’t seem to take note of the fact that he is doing dangerous things
or that people out there are trying to kill him. He just goes from one bad situation to the
next with seemingly little concern. If the character has no self-regard, then
it’s hard for the reader to care. So give your character those quiet moments
before the battle and then after the battle or before and after a particularly
difficult conversation with someone to reflect on the dangers inherent in what
they are about to do (physically and/or emotionally), or just survived.

It is in those moments that the
reader gets the chance to care about the character and when that happens, you
are primed to create a nail-biter of a novel.